


A Brother's Promise

by malachibi



Category: A Brother's Price - Wen Spencer
Genre: Crossdressing, F/M, Gay Male Character, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malachibi/pseuds/malachibi
Summary: Uninterested in women and nervous about his eventual marriage, Kai Whistler disguises himself as a girl and runs away from home.When he meets a family with a brother to trade, it might be time to end his adventure and find a way to make things work out for everyone.





	A Brother's Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Violsva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/gifts).



> A Yuletide work for Violsva, who wanted (among other things) boys running away and crossdressing. I hope this delivers!
> 
> This is set thirteen years post-canon; the Whistler sisters split at Heria and the younger half took the store, Liam, and Kai, leaving the older half with Cullen and the farm, along with Doric and the unnamed youngest brother.

Kai Whistler has always been pretty secure in his sexuality, despite only being fourteen. 

Unfortunately, that sexuality boils down to "men are attractive, girls do nothing for me," which isn't a terribly useful sexuality considering that his sisters are planning to sell him off in a couple years to some family looking for a husband to marry. 

He's tried getting it up to some of the pictures he's inherited from Liam, who'd presumably got them from Cullen, but there's just zero interest in women in his head. 

In two years, it won't much matter, and in just over two months, his brother will be swapped for a husband and his sisters' attention will turn to him, if the husband isn't sufficiently distracting. 

He probably will be, Kai thinks, considering how many boys were born to his mothers. His sisters can afford to find a good option, even if Heria's already twenty-six and impatient.

The other half of the family had waited that long too, though, so he's sure Heria and his other sisters can hold out for a good deal. 

They don't need to hold out for a good deal for him - it's just money, not a potential husband. 

And so he's been plotting for the last year, slowly gathering up what he needs in the little boltholes even Liam doesn't know about. 

The old razor that Kettie had discarded is under the floorboard by his bed, along with a worn-out belt Blush had given him with instructions to use for whatever he needed bits of leather for. 

The clothing had been easier to gather - he'd just made sure not to take anything his sisters would miss, particularly, or things that they'd outgrown and would assume had been passed down quietly to another sister. 

Money had been the hardest part, but it's what he'll need to live on his own until he can find a job or figure out what to do. 

There's a place in the world for women who are interested in other women, he knows. It follows that somewhere, maybe in a big city like the capital, there must be a place in the world for men who like men. 

If there is such a place, he'll find it, even if that means dressing up like a girl and making inquiries on behalf of a fictitious brother. 

\--

Kai leaves the house exactly two months before Liam's sixteenth birthday, sending up a silent apology to his brother as he does. 

Right now they share the housework, and though Liam will eventually go to a household that will expect him to do it all on his own until he has a son to pass work down to, he's not expecting the work to fall entirely to him just yet. 

The stairs are a little tricky, but he knows all the places that creak and he's been learning to avoid them for the past year's worth of planning. 

There's not a single squeak from the stairs, and the door he'd oiled just a couple days ago opens without a sound as well, allowing him to slip into the yard and close the door behind him. 

From there, it's just a brisk walk across the yard, as if he's someone who's supposed to be out at this time of night, and then he reaches the public street and the sweet smell of freedom. 

He still needs to cut his hair, but he has the whole night to handle getting a little bit farther away and also taking care of his hair and a couple other things he couldn't quite manage at home. 

With that in mind, he makes sure his hair is still tucked up under his hat, and starts walking. 

He stops in a barn after a couple hours, making sure it's abandoned before he risks going inside and taking off his hat. 

Once he's done here, there's less risk of exposure, but he has to take this risk first. 

He uses the scissors first, cutting off the majority of his hair so that there's less for the razor to deal with, especially considering how old the razor is. 

It wouldn't do to have the razor clog halfway through, after all. He needs his whole head buzzed. 

Once that's done, he spends a while running his hands over his head, marvelling at the odd texture of his shorn hair. 

He's had long hair ever since he can remember, but the freedom that comes with his new, short hair is more than a little exhilarating. 

From there, it's a simple job to pad his underthings properly - with one, to create the illusion that there's something there, and for the other, the illusion that there's nothing there. 

Once that's done, he feels safe enough to take a nap, figuring anyone who comes across him in his sleep will be fooled enough to take him for a woman. 

\--

He heads out again once he's woken up, and spends the next two days walking somewhat aimlessly. 

As long as his direction is still away from home, he's happy to go anywhere the road takes him. 

He's also moving away from the farm his other set of sisters owns, which is another plus. They'd likely not recognize him, but he's still planning on using the Whistler name, and he's sure they remember their store-bound sisters well enough to know there's not a Kaisa in their midst. 

Kaisa is the name he'd picked a day into his walking, or more like blurted out in a panic. Someone had asked for his name, and why hadn't he prepared one in advance? 

It was an oversight he'd corrected quickly, making up a whole backstory for himself that night, but he'd stuck with the name anyways. 

No sense in overcomplicating things, especially if he runs into the woman who'd met him as Kaisa. 

Another few days brings him closer to the mountains, where it's starting to get cold, and he stops at a store much like his sisters' store to purchase a warmer jacket - which takes almost all of his money - and a few candy sticks. 

Mostly, he just gets to choose from what his sisters bring home, so being able to look over the selection and pick out which flavors he wants is new and fascinating, and he probably takes way too long to decide. 

Still, the sister at the counter just nods and takes his money once he gets up there, and whistles appreciatively when she asks after his family and discovers he's a Whistler. 

"I heard your family had five boys," she says admiringly. "We thought about making an offer on one of 'em, but then the oldest married the queens and rumour says his bridal price was six thousand."

Kai nods, pitching his voice up a little. "That's right. Doric got three thousand when we sold him, and our two youngest will probably fetch the same once they're old enough."

"The middle brother due to be swapped?" she asks. 

"Yeah. Soon, too. We're eager for a husband."

It's funny how much he can talk without actually lying - he _would_ expect to be sold for at least two thousand gold, if he hadn't ruined his prospects by running away, and he would very much like a husband, not that he has any chance of getting one. 

One man in the world not getting married is bad enough, but dragging another man into it? He wants that, but he doesn't really expect anyone to let that happen. 

"I can imagine," she replies with a sigh. "Are you near the top?"

"No, one of the youngest. My Eldest is twenty-six," he tells her. 

"You're going to want to swap as soon as the boy's sixteen, then," she says, looking contemplative. "Makes me wish we had a brother in our house."

The conversation wraps up after that, and Kai makes his escape, heading further up into the cold now that he has the proper attire. 

\--

A week after leaving the store and the brotherless owners behind him, he accidentally stumbles into a blizzard. 

It's moving too fast to backtrack out of it, and so he pulls his hood tighter around his head and keeps moving forward. 

At some point, it has to stop, or he has to find some kind of shelter, he decides, and sure enough, he eventually catches sight of a nice-looking cave. 

Hopefully not one inhabited by bears, he thinks, and heads for it. 

It still takes him a good half-hour or so to get over there, between trying to make sure he doesn't slip and the way the wind is blowing against him, but he makes it there and dives in with a shout. 

To his surprise, there's an answering shout, and then a woman appears from deeper within the cave, gun drawn. 

Kai freezes, and the woman stares at him for a long moment before putting the gun away. 

It doesn't make him much less terrified. Him, alone with a woman in a place that isn't public for the first time. 

Sure, he'd gone into stores and chatted to women on the street while he's been out in disguise, but this is the first time he's actually at risk of being compromised or ruined. 

Not that he will be, because he looks like a woman, he reminds himself. 

"Hi," he offers finally. 

"Hey there," the other woman greets. "Who are you?"

"Kaisa Whistler, from Annaboro. You?" he asks. 

"Siobhan O'Reilly," she explains. "From Pineview."

He shakes his head. "I don't think I've been there yet. I just left Annaboro a week or so ago."

"For the first time?"

"Yeah. I was young enough to do basic store duties, so my older sisters were always the ones sent out of town," Kai lies. 

"Well, you're welcome to come visit Pineview if you'd like, once the blizzard stops," she offers. "For now, follow me. It's a little warmer back here."

"I like warmer," he agrees, and follows her deeper into the cave. 

She's already set up back here, with a small fire going and a bedroll spread between the fire and the wall. 

There even looks like something cooking over the fire, and his mouth waters a little. 

"Hungry?" she guesses, and he nods. 

"But I have some food too. We could share?" he offers tentatively, and she nods. 

"Good. Let's see what you've got."

A half hour later, the food is done and she passes him a dented metal bowl to eat from, though he uses his own spoon he'd picked up in his travels. 

They eat in companionable silence, and it's only once Kai's done that she speaks again. 

"So… Whistler. You're not related to _those_ Whistlers, are you?"

He doesn't even need to ask, not after everyone he'd met on the road had asked the same question. 

"Yes. My oldest brother married the queens," he agrees. 

She whistles. "Impressive. I hear you even have four more brothers."

"That's right."

"Tell me about them," she demands. 

"Now?" he asks, blinking at her. 

"Why not? We're gonna be stuck here a while, and there's nothing better to do. You tell me about your family, I'll tell you about mine."

Kai bites his lip, debates protesting, and finally just shrugs. "Okay," he agrees, and she grins at him. 

"Great! You first."

\--

By the time Kai's run through everyone from Heria all the way down to Bunny - making sure to include himself as his own twin sister - the fire's starting to die out and the wind from outside doesn't sound nearly as bad as it had. 

It still sounds bad enough that he's not going out there right now, but at least it's improving. 

"How many sisters do you have?" he wonders, since she seems to be waiting for him to ask. 

"There's ten of us total," she explains. "Eight sisters and a brother. Brid's our Eldest, then there's Aisling, me, Imogen, Reagan, Keegan - our brother," she adds as an aside, "and then Cait, Kacey, Niamh, and Fiona, the baby. She's not actually a baby."

Kai, who still gets called the baby sometimes by some of his sisters despite being older than Pansy _and_ Bunny, nods understandingly. 

"We're hoping to trade Keegan soon, but he just turned sixteen, so we have plenty of time," she continues. "I wish we had another brother, though, but our mothers thought ten kids was a big enough family. No sense in having ten more girls in an attempt for one more boy, right? Though your family seems to get, what, one in every three?"

"One in six," Kai corrects, shifting a little closer to the fire. If he counts himself as Kaisa, there's thirty Whistler sisters and five brothers, so the math is easy enough. 

"Lucky," she sighs. "You should come home with me and meet my brother. Maybe if he can say he's met one of the famous Whistlers, he'll fetch a better husband for us."

The look in her eye says she's hoping for something a little more direct, and Kai panics a little - it's not like he's an actual sister who can make marriage offers or anything. 

Still, the thought of meeting a man who isn't related to him somehow or already married is very tempting, and so he nods. 

"I'd like to see other homes," he admits. "I never really got to leave home, not unless it was to visit my other sisters or my cousins or something."

"Then it's settled," Siobhan decides, clapping her hands together. "For now, though, it's only going to get colder, so we should use my bedroll as a mat and yours as a blanket."

"Share?" Kai says, and tries not to panic. "I, uh… sure," he decides when she gives him a questioning look. 

His sisters shared beds all the time, especially when they were younger - there's no sense in trying to protest that he'd never done that if he's pretending to be a sister. 

And the other options aren't great - it is getting really cold, and it's not like she's going to try to compromise him if she doesn't even know he's really a boy. 

"Let's get set up, then," she offers, and soon enough, the fire is banked and he's curled up in effectively the same bed as a woman who isn't his sister. 

On the bright side, after an hour of trying and failing to go to sleep, he's more certain than ever that girls just don't interest him at all, sexually. 

Looks-wise, Siobhan's really pretty, with red hair clipped fashionably short and bright green eyes, but even curled up next to each other, he feels no stirring at all. 

A brother that looks like Siobhan, though… that sounds interesting, he decides, and closes his eyes again with determination. 

The faster he goes to sleep, the faster he can get out of here and meet a boy who isn't related to him.

\--

He wakes first, startled by a noise outside, and immediately pulls away from Siobhan. 

Nothing had happened, he reminds himself, and adjusts his underthings quickly before stoking the fire back up to get something started for breakfast. 

Siobhan yawns and stretches once breakfast is done, and she shoots him a grateful look as he passes her a bowl.

"Blizzard cleared up?" she asks once both their bowls are empty. 

"Can't hear it anymore," he notes, and she nods. 

"I'll go check," she offers, and disappears for a couple minutes. 

When she returns, there's snow in her hair and on her coat, but it's light enough that it's probably not too bad out, he thinks, and she's quick to confirm that. 

"So now we can head to my house," she declares. "Soon as we clean up here."

Cleaning up is nothing new to him, but he tries to share the task equally, and she seems happy enough to step up and do her half of the work. 

Soon enough, they're on their way out, packs strapped to their backs and coats firmly fastened against the cold. 

It takes them most of the day to make the trek, but if he's reading the sun correctly, it's probably about dinnertime when they make a turn off the road onto a well-worn track. 

"Home sweet home! Probably not much compared to yours, but it's what we've got," she tells him. 

"I like it," he replies quickly. 

It's true that the house is much smaller than theirs, but theirs had once housed a good half of their mothers and all seventeen of his sisters in addition to him and his brother, and this house only needs to support nine sisters, one brother, and however many mothers they have. 

"I'm home!" she calls as soon as they're in the door, and almost immediately there's the sound of a stampede. 

"Siobhan!!" a young girl cries, throwing herself at his companion, and she laughs, spinning the girl around before setting her back down. 

"I missed you," Siobhan informs her, and the girl beams before turning her attention to him. 

"Who's this?" she asks, suddenly suspicious. 

"My new friend Kaisa Whistler," Siobhan explains, and then lifting her gaze to one of the older girls crowded around, she wiggles her eyebrows. "And yes, _those_ Whistlers."

The girl she'd been looking at nods. "So that's why you didn't bother to warn us that you had a guest?" she guesses. "Figured if there's any family that doesn't need to steal a husband…?"

"We wouldn't!" Kai protests indignantly. At least, they wouldn't now, he corrects mentally. His grandmothers were a different story. 

"Alright," she agrees, apparently mollified. "Keegan, it's safe."

Siobhan puts her hand over her heart, though she looks more mock-offended than anything. "Bridget! You thought I'd bring home someone unsafe?"

"Better safe than sorry with our brother," Bridget points out. 

Kai looks around for the mysterious brother, and finally catches sight of a redhead poking their head cautiously out from what must be the kitchen. 

He quickly tears his eyes away, knowing how his own sisters tend to react when visitors' eyes linger on him or Liam too long. He doesn't want to ruin the hospitality he's being offered here, after all. 

"You can bunk in with me," Siobhan decides when he looks back at her. "I've an extra bed in my room from when Fiona used to share with me. C'mon, let's go put your pack away, and then we can eat."

Kai nods, and follows her up the stairs. 

\--

He doesn't see any more of Keegan that night, as it's one of the middle sisters who brings the food out from the kitchen, and though he gets to see and talk to the other man a few times over the next couple days, it's completely impossible to have a nice private conversation with him. 

He's been disguised as a girl for two weeks now, and for all the freedom that had brought him, he's now wishing for the first time that he was dressed as a boy instead. 

If he was dressed as a boy, he could sit and chat with Keegan for hours as they did the mending or cooking or laundry or any number of things. 

Dimly, he's aware that he's more in love with the idea of Keegan than the man himself, but with all nine sisters on guard all the time, it's hard to get an actual feel for what Keegan is like. 

So, on his third night staying there, he pulls a bit of a desperate move and hides a note under his plate as he passes it to Keegan at the end of dinner.

Keegan notices, he can tell, because his eyes widen just slightly, but he doesn't give any other obvious indicators, which is a relief. 

He's doing something really dumb right now, Kai thinks, because if he gets caught at this he's either going to get thrown out of the house and beaten down, or he'll have to reveal his real identity to save their brother's reputation.

Still, he doesn't think he'd be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try, so he'll take the risk. 

He waits until everyone's sound asleep and the clock strikes midnight, creeps out of bed and down the stairs. 

There hasn't been time to learn these stairs as well as he knew the ones back home, but he still manages to sneak down nearly soundlessly, and then down into the basement. 

"I hope you know my sisters and mothers will all be here in seconds if I scream," Keegan's voice says as soon as his foot touches the basement floor.

"My sisters would do the same for me," Kai admits, and Keegan appears from around the corner, a lit candle in a handheld carrier lighting up his face as he blinks in confusion. 

"Why would they…?" he starts, and then pauses, eyes widening. "Are you…?"

"Shh," Kai hisses, since the other man's voice had risen a little on the second question. "I ran away from home. My brother's almost of age and then they're going to start looking for wives for me and I _can't_ get married. I don't like women," he confesses, since he's spilling all his other secrets already.

Keegan frowns. "You still shouldn't be down here with me! You're either going to ruin my reputation or your own," he points out. 

"If you were that worried, you would have stayed upstairs," Kai retorts. 

"I would have, but you're really pretty," Keegan shrugs. "I figured I could just scream if you had bad intentions, but it's not like my sisters would let us talk alone if I didn't come down here in secret."

"You think I'm pretty?" Kai asks, latching onto the most important part of what he'd said.

"I mean, yeah. I bet you'd look nice with long hair, too, but the short hair looks good on you."

"You're really pretty too," Kai blurts out, and sighs. "I wish there were more boys. I bet if there were more, I'd be able to marry you."

Keegan shakes his head. "Maybe, but I can't abandon my sisters. No matter how pretty you are," he adds with a grin. "I like girls, so I'm not opposed to being married, even if I like boys too."

Kai starts to get the inklings of a terrible, awful plan. 

And yet, if it worked… it would be a brilliant, amazing plan. 

He'll sort the details of the plan out later, he decides. For now, he'll take this chance to get to know Keegan.

\--

He creeps upstairs when they're done talking, having let Keegan precede him by a good ten minutes to be sure, and then ducks into the bathroom to do his business so that he can claim that's where he was if he wakes Siobhan coming back. 

Sure enough, she sits up a little groggily as he crawls back into bed. 

"Bathroom?" she guesses, and he nods. 

She's back asleep in moments, and Kai lies back in his borrowed bed, letting his newfound plan float to the surface. 

It's all very reliant on his sisters, but he can't stay on the run forever - eventually he's going to have to go back home and convince them there's no point in selling him off and that they should just keep him at home. 

After all, with seventeen sisters to deal with, whoever they marry will probably need some help, and Kai is great at cleaning. Phenomenal, even. 

So all he has to do is go home and convince his sisters to trade Liam for a boy they've never met in a town they've never been to, or else talk them into paying a high enough brother's price to let the O'Reillys buy a husband. 

Sight unseen, unless they decide it's worth a visit to consider him in person. 

Still, it's a better plan then his original plan, which was 'run away with Keegan and pretend to be women forever', so he'll take it. 

He'll stay another couple days to finish his visit, and then it'll be time to head home and face the music, he decides, and closes his eyes. 

\--

Keegan stops trying to hide in the kitchen once they've had their midnight talk, and he's not forward exactly, but he's also not trying very hard to hide his interest in Kai. 

Kai can't help reciprocating the little glances and tiny touches, and he's sure more than one sister has noticed, so he goes to Siobhan's Eldest the morning he intends to leave.

"I'm one of the youngest," he tells her, which is true enough, "and I can't make any decisions on who we'll marry. But… if you don't already have anyone in mind for your brother, I'd like to ask my family to consider him," he admits. 

All true, actually. It's pretty easy to lie when most of what you're saying is the truth, he thinks. 

"I thought you might say something like that," Bridget notes. "You've been very respectful of our boundaries even while making your intentions clear, and we appreciate that," she adds, waving a hand to include her absent sisters. "Are you leaving today?"

"As soon as I say goodbye to Siobhan," Kai agrees. 

She nods. "Good luck with your sisters. I won't accept any offers on Keegan for a month, to give you time to arrange things with your family."

"Thank you," he responds with feeling, and heads off to find Siobhan. 

An hour later, he's on the road home, and he's a little torn on how to feel about that. 

On one hand, he misses the comforts of home, and his siblings, and even the store. On the other hand, his freedom is likely to be heavily curtailed after this, especially if they can keep him tucked away long enough to regrow his hair to an acceptable length and therefore pretend he'd never left and that he's still eligible for a respectable marriage. 

Then again, if he manages to make his idea work, he's not exactly going to protest being confined to the house. 

Even if it doesn't work, all he has to do is be horrible enough that they can't marry him off, and then he can stay home with whoever they marry. 

It'd be better if it were Keegan, but as long as he has some companionship and he doesn't need to be married, he'll be okay. 

With that in mind, his steps lighten a little, and he makes his way home in a matter of days. 

\--

It's late when he arrives home, sometime a little after dinner, and he eases open the side door and slips inside and up the stairs to his room. 

Liam turns when he opens the door, and then gapes at him. 

"Where have you _been_!?" his brother demands. "What happened to your hair? What're you wearing!?"

Kai looks down at himself and shrugs, starting to strip his women's clothing off. "I didn't have anything to change back into. I wasn't really planning on coming back," he admits, pulling a walking robe over his head and kicking his discarded clothing into a corner. 

Liam blinks at him. "You weren't going to come back? Why?"

"Can't be married if my sisters can't find me," Kai points out cheerfully. "But I found someone for them to marry, so I came back."

"You… what?" Liam replies. "Wait, where are you going?"

"Gotta talk to Heria about him," Kai tells him, and heads out of their room and downstairs. 

He passes Violet on the stairs, who gives him an absent wave and a mumbled "hi, Kai," without looking up from her book, and then makes it down to the study where Heria usually holes up in the evenings. 

"If you have to ask, the answer is no," Heria says as soon as he steps in the door. 

"Aww," he starts, but doesn't get the chance to make a funny comment before she whirls to look at him and then stands up to her full height with a glare. 

"Where the hell have you been? It's been nearly a month! You're lucky nobody's tried to call on you, or everyone would know you were missing and we'd never make a respectable marriage for you," she tells him. 

"I don't want a respectable marriage!" he protests. "That's why I ran away!"

She blinks, taking a step back. "You don't want to get married?" she asks, and he shakes his head. 

"But I found someone for you to marry!"

Heria tilts her head to the side, eyeing him a little warily. "Oh?"

"His name is Keegan and he's really pretty and his sisters want to trade him and he likes me and I like him," Kai gets out in a rush. 

"You like him," his sister repeats, studying him. "As in…?"

"I can't marry him. But if I could, I'd want to try," Kai explains. 

"And so you want us to marry him, and to not sell you off to be married," she summarizes. 

"Yes," he agrees, clasping his hands behind his back. "I know we're doing well enough that we don't really _need_ my price for anything, especially since we can trade Liam for a husband. It'd be a nice nest egg, but we could live without it."

"Away for a month and you're suddenly a business expert?" she wonders. "It's true that we're not reliant on your price, but that still doesn't mean we can afford to keep you home."

"Would the talk of me being kept home be any worse than the talk that would come from me coming home from a marriage in disgrace? Women don't interest me. I wouldn't be able to fulfill my marital duties," Kai says, offering up his last hope to his sister. 

She frowns, tapping her foot on the floor for a few moments. 

"Go get Blush and Leia," she orders finally, naming the two next-oldest siblings, "and go to sleep. We'll talk about this in the morning. No," she adds when he opens his mouth to complain. "I promise we'll talk to you first thing in the morning. Emma can open the store."

"Okay," he agrees, shoulders slumping. 

It's easy enough to find his two sisters, twin-close as they are, and not so easy to extricate himself from a conversation about his hair, but he manages to duck out once they're at the study and escape back upstairs. 

Liam's already sound asleep, so he crawls into his own bed with a sigh. 

If this doesn't work, he's running away again, he decides. Siobhan would take him in, probably.

With that comforting thought in mind, he drifts off.

\--

He wakes up in the morning to a barrage of questions about his adventure from all three of his oldest sisters, which leaves him feeling wrung out and more than ready for lunch. 

Luckily, after a month on his own, Liam seems more than capable of putting together a lunch by himself, and Kai's feeling much better by the time his plate is clean. 

Of course, that means Heria slides into the spot across the table from him, propping her elbows up on the wooden surface. 

"I'm sending Celain to go visit this family," she announces, and Kai brightens. "If your story checks out, and if she likes this boy and this family, she'll report back and I can send Blush to make the final arrangements. It _would_ be nice to marry Liam to someone a little farther away, so we can make some trade arrangements when we go to visit him. It might be good for us, too, to marry someone who isn't from this town. That means no sisters coming to the store and expecting trade deals."

"That's good," Kai agrees cautiously. 

"As for your marriage… I'm willing to put the idea on the shelf for now. If we need the money, I reserve the right to start looking for wives for you, but that wouldn't be for a couple years anyways," Heria notes. 

"Yes!" Kai cheers. "Thank you, you won't regret this, I'll go do all the laundry now," he vows, and dashes out of the room before she can put any more conditions on her decision. 

For now, he'll take what he can get, and what he can get is a postponement of marriage and a chance of Keegan being a permanent fixture in his life. 

\--

He doesn't get to talk to Celain when she gets back, and he suspects she has orders to keep the details of her trip away from him, but he _does_ notice Blush leave a couple days later, which he hopes means things went well. 

She's back in a week with Siobhan, which is even better. 

"Kaisa!" she greets, moving to hug him before five sisters pile into the space between him. "Or… Kai, right. My apologies," she says, bowing her head briefly to his sisters. 

"No apologies necessary," Heria assures her. "Though I think you'll be more interested in meeting my other brother," she adds, and Kai gets closed out of the conversations again as Siobhan and Blush get ushered into the study by Heria and Leia. 

He paces in his room, sparing a thought to how amusing it must be that he's more anxious about the possibility of this marriage than some of his sisters, and then finally there's a knock on his door. 

"Hey," Siobhan greets. "Your sisters said I could talk to you really quick, since we've already been alone together and nothing's happened by both our accounts."

"Sorry I lied to you," he offers, and she shrugs. 

"It's understandable. It must be hard to be a brother, stuck at home forever. I'd hate it," she declares. "Anyways, your sisters will tell everyone this officially, I'm sure, but the marriage contract has been drawn up and we'll do the trade once your brother turns sixteen."

"Really!?" Kai asks, sitting up. "Keegan'll come here?"

"To marry your sisters, yeah. I gather what your place in all this depends on what he and they decide. I don't have any say in that," she says with a laugh. 

"Good enough," Kai decides, and hugs her. "Thanks for telling me."

"Anytime, Kais-- er, Kai," she corrects, returning the hug before taking a couple steps back. "And now I'm off to let my family know the good news, so I'll see you in a month or so."

"Safe travels," he offers.

\--

A few days after the marriage ceremony, Keegan collapses into the bed that used to be Liam's. 

"Ugh," he says, and Kai looks up from his mending. 

"Ugh?" Kai repeats. 

"You have so many sisters. How do you ever get all the chores done?" 

"I don't have chores to do at night, for one," Kai teases, just to see Keegan blush as red as his hair. "Also, teamwork. Liam and I had it down, and you and I will get there."

"I hope so," Keegan agrees, rolling onto his side to look at him. 

His eyes go somewhere above him after a moment, though, and Kai turns to see what he's looking at. 

"Your women's clothes," Keegan explains before Kai can ask. "Why do you still have those?"

"In case I want to have more adventures," Kai tells him, and grins. "I can get you a set, too."

Keegan matches his grin. "Sure," he agrees. 

Kai settles back into bed, already plotting out all the adventures they can go on as faux-husbands. 

Together, they'll be unstoppable.

\--


End file.
